Reading together, quoting aloud and literary education

How do we talk about the books we read together? How do teachers guide reading of study texts in schools? This seminar reports on the continuing British Academy-funded project Literature's Lasting Impression which investigates shared reading of novels and reading aloud in primary schools, secondary schools, universities and public reading groups. In particular, it will attend to teachers' action of quoting study texts aloud during collective reading activity in primary and secondary classrooms. What functions does this appear to serve? Informed by Conversation Analysis, the presentation also extends exploration of quoting aloud as distinct from quotation in writing, which I have termed echo in earlier work investigating pupils' responses to poetry. Drawing on my role as a teacher educator in the field of Secondary English, I will also reflect on methodological issues and the role of empirical research in teacher education and the pedagogy of literary reading. How can transcripts of classroom interaction be used to refine and improve teacher education, and what is the potential of a corpus dedicated to this distinctive form of spoken language?